📸 My approach to street photography.
📸 My approach to street photography.
a brief crash course on how I document everyday life while traveling.
👨✈️ The Briefing Room:
Notes and open topics from the editor’s desk.
Welcome Departures! “The place to be for where to go and what to see.”
I don’t buy souvenirs. Wherever I go, I collect nothing but good memories and photographs. As a professional photographer and full time traveler, I always have a proper camera on me for both work and pleasure. So today I thought I would share some of the thought process behind my street captures while I am out and about. This post is inspired by from the who’s been doing some great work building the photography community here on Substack. Whatever your relationship with the medium is, if you like photography, I highly recommend you subscribe to his newsletter and follow him on Notes where he hosts weekly photo challenges:
Now without further ado, let’s take it away!
Alvin
🗺️ Planning & Preparation.
As much as I’d like to just grab the camera on my way out the door and start making photographs, there’s a bit more that goes into my process. When I’m visiting a city I like to have a broad plan of possible daily activities. These may be sights to see or errands to run. So I normally begin by looking at the weather forecast for the day and things I can accommodate during the time I’m planning on being out. With a defined set of activities penciled in, I pull up the map and identify the best route to get from point A to point B. For the route, I try to strike a balance between efficiency and opportunity. For example, instead of talking public transit from my accommodation directly to the first point of interest, I might get off a couple of stops before my final destination and walk the rest of the way there with my camera. A variation of this would have me go half way to my destination, make a stopover along the way, shoot for a few hours and then continue to my final destination. For planning I depend mostly on 3 apps:
Google Maps:
Google Maps - Most people will be familiar with this app as it’s built in to Android and one of the first apps iOS user download onto their devices. I rely on this app for all my route planning and have very organized lists of pinned places in every city / country I’ve ever been in.
My Radar:
My Radar - Available for Android and iOS, this is the most comprehensive weather app I’ve found that is consistently accurate everywhere I go. The iPad version is beautiful to look at and offers a great user experience. It works just as great on a phone. The fully functional app is free with a few optional one time purchases that unlock advance features and an optional subscription that unlocks the app’s SAAS features.
The Photographer’s Ephemeris:
The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) - Available for iOS and web, this app is one of the most important tools in a photographer’s digital arsenal. It is a map app for the sun, the moon and the stars. Among its many features, it allow you to visualize what the sun is doing and how the light falls in any part of the world where you have GPS signal. It is invaluable for those days where I am specifically chasing the light. More on that below.
🚶♂️➡️Hitting the Streets.
With my plan laid out, I grab my camera and head out the door. My main goal when shooting street photography is to be able to get up close to my subjects while being as least intrusive as possible. These days I mostly shuffle between a Nikon EM 35mm film kit and a Lumix GM-1 digital kit. Both of these are very small, long discontinued cameras that do not call too much attention to themselves.
Although I have a full range of lenses for both camera systems, I will typically choose one camera body and one lens before going out the door. Limiting my options gets all decisions about gear out of the way and allows me to focus on the photographs I want to make. It prevents distractions and helps me stay in the moment.
☀️ Following the Light & Gestures.
When deciding what I want as my subject, I usually ask myself these questions:
How is the mood? Light hits different subjects differently. Light also plays a crucial role in establishing the photograph’s mood. Just like I define before leaving my accommodation the camera and lens I am going to take, I also try to define the mood of the photographs I want to make. This is where The Photographer’s Ephemiris app comes into play. Where Google Maps will give me the general direction where I need to go, TPE will show me the route to take to get the best light.
What is the moment? One of the most interesting things about street photography is all the possibilities that open up when you let go and embrace the moment. Some moments are best captured from the hip as they happen while other moments are made from the interactions with the environment. Both situations require a certain awareness do be able to identify what we want to capture and a certain fortitude to press the button without fear of judgement.
Where is the gesture? Gesture is not just the expression in someone’s face. Gesture is the characteristic essence that’s present in everything we see. It is the unwritten message between the lines. It is also extremely elusive to capture, but you know you got it when you see it. All my favorite photographs have gesture.
📸 Ask for permission or beg for forgiveness.
This seems to be a pretty big debate among street photographers. Do you shoot from a distance and stay unnoticed? Or do you just go up to someone’s face and shoot away? In my view there is no right or wrong. Just right or wrong for your particular situation. Take this scenario here with the blacksmiths. From the second I walked by I knew I wanted to shoot them. I could’ve lurked across the street with a long telephoto lens and shot them from my comfort zone. But I knew that interesting guys like these surely had an interesting story to tell. So instead, I walked up to them, introduced myself and asked them how long they had been doing this. After a few minutes exchanging stories about each other, they went back to work and invited me to take a step inside the shop to shoot them in action.
For contrast, in the image below, the moment would’ve have been completely lost if I had approached the subjects and interacted with them in any way. These kind of moments are better captured spontaneously.
I’ve always found street photography to be a very rewarding genre. It requires a good balance between the creative and the unpredictable. It offers photographers a unique way to get out of their comfort zone and interact with their environment. Even when just practiced casually, it is a great opportunity to grow technically and artistically while also creating impactful images. In my view, the best way to do it is by starting with a loose plan, giving yourself some creative limitations and just going out and enjoying the moment.
🛫 About Us:
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